LOS ANGELES, United States (Reuters) — Two-time Emmy Award-winning actor Robert Guillaume, who became one of the most prominent black actors on U.S. television playing the cantankerous title character in the hit 1980s series “Benson,” died of complications from prostate cancer on Tuesday (October 24), his wife said. He was 89.
The gravelly voiced Guillaume, who thrived in Broadway musicals before starring on the TV series “Soap” and its spinoff “Benson,” died at his Los Angeles home, his wife Donna Brown Guillaume said in a statement.
It is not known how long he had been battling cancer.
Robert Guillaume first played sarcastic and irascible butler Benson DuBois on the over-the-top soap opera parody series “Soap,” which debuted in 1977 and also starred Katherine Helmond, Richard Mulligan and Billy Crystal.
His work on that show won Guillaume won the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series in 1979.
On film, Guillaume provided the voice for the mandrill Rafiki in Disney’s animated movies “The Lion King” and “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride,” and appeared with Morgan Freeman in the 1989 drama “Lean on Me.”
